To understand any phenomenon, its roots must first be understood. Unfortunately, not only do all discussions on the conflict between Islam and the West tend to be limited to the modern era, but when the past, the origins, are alluded to, the antithesis of reality is proffered. We hear that the West -- itself an anachronism for Europe, or better yet, Christendom -- began the conflict by intentionally demonizing otherwise peaceful and tolerant Muslims and their prophet in order to justify their “colonial” aspirations in the East, which supposedly began with the Crusades. Bestselling author on Islam and Christianity Karen...

Few people have punctuated history like Martin Luther, the man who spawned the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago, says author Eric Metaxas, whose latest book chronicles his life and legacy. "I never wanted to write another biography," Metaxas said in an interview with The Christian Post in early September, noting that his previous biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, was a huge undertaking. But two friends — to whom he dedicates his new work, Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed World —convinced him that he was the man for the job given that this...

The "Sub tuum praesidium" was originally used in an ancient Coptic liturgy As we pray for the success of Pope Francisâ€™ trip to Egypt this weekend,Â a perfect prayer to use is the oldest known Marian prayer, which in fact, traces back to the popeâ€™s host country.The oldest known Marian prayer is found onÂ an ancient Egyptian papyrus dating from around the year 250. Today known in the Church as theÂ Sub tuum praesidium, the prayer is believed to have been part ofÂ the Coptic Vespers liturgy during the Christmas season. Read more: Saint Mark: Father of CopticÂ Christianity Â Â The original prayer was...

Tim Keller / January 6, 2017 Many say that Christians who maintain the historic, traditional doctrines are behind the times, are too exclusive, and are â€śon the wrong side of history.â€ť Two recent books that cast doubt on this viewÂ are from historian and biblical scholar Larry Hurtado:Â Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman WorldÂ andÂ Why on Earth Did Anyone Become a Christian in the First Three Centuries?. The earliest Christians were widely ridiculed, especially by cultural elites, wereÂ excluded from circles of influence and business,Â and were often persecuted and put to death. Hurtado says Roman authorities were uniquely hostile...

What was the role of the Catholic Church in building Western Civilization? While the typical mainstream narrative depicts the church as hostile to science and philosophy, it appears that once again the truth about history has been stolen from us. Dr. Duke Pesta joins Stefan Molyneux to discuss the unspoken truth about the impact of the Catholic church on scientific inquiry, philosophy and Western Civilization overall.

Chapter 11 of the Acts of the Apostles says that Antioch was the city in which, for the first time, the disciples of Jesus were called “Christians.” Tradition has enthroned Peter as the founder of the Church of Antioch, following the narration of the very same Book of Acts, which tells not only of the arrival of Peter and Barnabas to the Turkish city, but also of their preaching.Moreover, this very same tradition claims that it was in the Knisset Mar Semaan Kefa (“Grotto of St. Peter” in Aramaic) where Peter would celebrate the Eucharist for this community. That is to...

Christianity’s Major “Pivot-Points”Recently as I meditated on Scripture, the Holy Spirit drew my attention and interest to how a certain verse embodies a pivoting or inflection-point in Christianity’s long story. That caused me to want to derive and list all of the major pivot-points which have occurred—that is, pivotal incidents which substantially changed the course of events in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan. Your list might be somewhat different, but all these seem to me to be hugely impactful. Chronologically, they are: CREATION—God creates our physical universe to house us and then He creates us, the first physical creatures...

A Harvard professor who caused a huge splash when she unveiled a small fragment of papyrus that she said referred to Jesus being married now says it’s likely a forgery. In 2012, Harvard Divinity School Professor Karen King presented the fragment, which includes the phrase, “Jesus said to them, my wife.” Since then, other scholars have raised doubts about the fragment’s authenticity. …

With remarkable insouciance, NYT writers Jeremy W. Peters and Lizette Alvarez blithely make reference to “a Bible verse from Romans that calls for the execution of gays,” meaning Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans 1:18-32.As anyone who has ever read the New Testament knows, Saint Paul never permits that Christians should commit any violence whatsoever against homosexuals, but the Times editors apparently thought that fact-checking with the original text was superfluous or that readers were too ignorant to check for themselves.The Times report, titled “After Orlando, a Political Divide on Gay Rights Still Stands,” follows on the fatal shooting of...

When amateur archaeologist Dennis Fabricius Holm got off work early last Friday and decided to spend a couple of hours searching a little field in Funen with his metal detector, little did he know he was about to make history. Holm stumbled across one of the most extraordinary finds in recent times near the little town of Aunslev when he discovered a crucifix that dates back about 1,100 years – Denmark’s oldest crucifix ever found. It could rewrite Danish history. “It’s a completely sensational find that dates back to the first half of the 900s,” Malene Refshauge Beck, a curator...

Unearthed in the central Turkish region of Cappadocia, the unique church contains remarkable frescoesLast February, archaeologists unearthed a unique rock-carved underground church in Nevsehir, in the central Turkish region of Cappadocia. The church was decorated with never before seen frescoes depicting JesusÂ’ Ascension, the Final Judgement, Jesus feeding the multitudes, and portraits of saints and prophets. The discovery, made during excavations and cleaning operations in an underground city recently uncovered as part of an urban project in Nevsehir, is located within a castle that might date back to the fifth century. Authorities expect it will make Cappadocia an even more...

A 1,500-year-old church which was buried under debris from an earthquake for more than a millennium has reopened to the public after a painstaking restoration of some of the world’s earliest Christian art. The sixth-century church of Santa Maria Antiqua is located in the ancient Roman Forum, at the bottom of the Palatine Hill, where Roman emperors lived for centuries in sumptuous palaces.

Patricius: The True Story of St. Patrick Before all the festivities focused on shamrocks and leprechauns and good luck wishes, there was truly something to celebrate: a man willing to stand in the gap for Jesus Christ. It was an act of defiance that changed the course of a nation. Patrick lit a fire in pagan 5th century Ireland, ushering Christianity into the country. Who was this man who became the patron saint of Ireland? Ireland was a beautiful island shrouded in terrible darkness. Warlords and druids ruled the land. But across the sea in Britain, a teen-ager was poised...

He Warned Us About Islam Over 750 Years Agoâ€¦ Itâ€™s Time To Listen. St. Thomas Aquinas is considered one of the most revered philosophers and theologians of any era. A 13th-century Dominican friar, his works include the â€śSumma Theologicaâ€ť and several groundbreaking commentaries on the works of Aristotle. Over 750 years ago, he also had some prescient words about the spread of Islam, shared via Breitbart. In his work â€śSumma Contra Gentilesâ€ť â€” in which he argued for the truth of Christianity against other religions â€” he blasted Islam as a carnal, brutal religion which seemed to place earthly pleasures...

Unsurprisingly, then, during the 8th century, Muslims began to conceive of the world as divided between the House of Islam and a Christian 'House of War', sinister in its disbelief, obdurate in its defiance of the message of the Holy Koran. Sayings became attributed to Muhammad which cast warfare in the cause of the Muslim God as a duty of the Faithful, such as: 'I was ordered to fight all men until they say, 'There is no god but Allah.' ' Slaughtering Christians was cast not merely as an option for dutiful Muslims, but as a positive obligation. One veteran...

The Islamic State has managed to destroy two thousand years of Christian civilization in the Middle East in just a couple of years, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters noted on The O’Reilly Factor last week. And he placed the blame squarely on President Obama’s cowardly, feckless, incompetent foreign policy.ISIS has been spreading across the Middle East like a plague of locusts, and as they have spread, they have targeted religious minorities, particularly Christians, for destruction. In Syria, tens of thousands of Assyrian Christians have been attacked and displaced.They are the forgotten refugees.A Catholic priest who visited Kurdish Iraq last fall described...

In the days of the early church – I’m thinking specifically of the 2nd century – Christian apologists had to defend the faith against false charges, accusations, and misrepresentations. One such apologist, Athenagoras (d. 200 AD?), wrote a booklet to Roman rulers called A Plea for the Christians. This apology by Athenagoras is still quite relevant today because it discusses things we still talk about today. I’ll come back to this booklet later, but for now I want to point out what this 2nd century Christian apologist said about sexual immorality and homosexuality. Athenagoras refuted the claim or accusation that...

Historians speculate that early settler leader could have been a Catholic spy Historians have discovered four bodies and a mystery Catholic reliquary under the first English Protestant church in America.In an extraordinary turn of events, graves have been discovered under what used to be the floor of Americaâ€™s first Protestant church in Jamestown, Virginia â€“ the church where Pocahontas married the English colonist John Rolfe.The graves include the bodies of Captain William West, who was killed by Indians, Rev Robert Hunt, Jamestownâ€™s first Anglican minister and Sir Ferdinando Wainman, the first English knight buried in America. The grave of...

Definition of Sola Scriptura Sola Scriptura: the reformed Protestant belief that the Scriptures alone are the final and only infallible authority for the Christian. This does not mean that Scriptures are the only authority (nuda or solo Scriptura), as Protestants believe in the authority of tradition, reason, experience, and emotions to varying degrees (after all, “sola scriptura” itself is an authoritative tradition in Protestantism). It does mean that Scripture trumps all other authorities (it is the norma normans sed non normata Lat. “norm that norms which is not normed”). Scripture is the norma normans sed non normata “norm that norms which is...

Last week I was writing about Magna Carta and how the Catholic Church’s role has been written out, in particular the part of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. But the same could also be said about much of English history from 600AD to 1600; from the very first law code written in English, which begins with a clause protecting Church property, to the intellectual flourishing of the 13th century, led by churchmen such as Roger Bacon, the Franciscan friar who foresaw air travel. However, the whitewashing of English Catholic history is mainly seen in three areas: political liberty, economic...